Hollande Says Muslims 'Main Victims of Fanaticism, Intolerance'
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – French President Francois Hollande said Thursday that Muslims suffered the most from fundamentalism and intolerance, as the country grapples with the fallout from a string of militant attacks.
"It is Muslims who are the main victims of fanaticism, fundamentalism and intolerance," Hollande said in a speech at the Arab World Institute in Paris, which beamed the phrase "Je suis Charlie" (meaning "I am Charlie") on its building in the wake of the attacks.
A string of terrorist incidents in France took the lives of 17 people in three days of violence which began with an attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly on Wednesday, January 7, and ended with Friday's dual hostage-taking at a print works outside Paris and kosher supermarket in the city.
The French president said the Muslim community in France, Europe's largest, have "the same rights and the same duties as all citizens" and must be protected.
After the deadly shooting at the magazine, the French rushed to get their hands on the "survivors' issue" which sold out Wednesday before more copies of an eventual print run of five million hit newsstands.
Long queues formed throughout the country again on Thursday as copies again quickly ran out.
Al-Qaida's branch in Yemen, where the Kouachi brothers are known to have trained, released a video Wednesday claiming responsibility for the attack, saying it was "vengeance" for the magazine's cartoons of the prophet.